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Two years after Windows 10: Windows 7 is still threatening a 2020 EOL meltdown

The figures are not looking great for this Windows as a Service model

THIS MONTH'SNetmarketshare figures from Net Applications are a smorgasbord of the quiet summer months. However, the good news is we can take a look at some different figures - year on year, two years on from the launch of Microsoft Windows 10.

Before we do, first off, here's this month's month or month figures for the month.

Bottom line: Windows 90.37 percent of the market. Mac has 5.94 and Linux has taken a jump to 3.37 (0.84).

The only event of note - it has been quiet, as relatively few devices are released over the summer - is that there are now the same percentage of people using Windows 8.1 as there are Windows XP - 6.07.

So let us cast our minds back to summers past and see how Windows 10 is actually doing. Remember, at launch, Microsoft promised it was aiming for 2 billion machines in its first two years. The fact it hasn't achieved that even allowing for IoT and XBox devices, as well as a host of other new form factors, is obvious, but it was a big, fat, hairy audacious goal in the first place.

When the first figures came out, a few days after launch, Windows 10 was already sitting at 0.39 percent, thanks to the early adopters program. A year later, it sat at 22.99, as the free upgrade offer finished.

Microsoft would have had egg on their faces, had they extended the offer, but nevertheless, progress since has been slow. Today's 27.99 means that just a five percent shift has moved to Windows 10 since the end of the freebie.

When you consider all the devices that Windows 10 is on besides desktops, that's a pretty unhealthy figure. The last public figure that Terry Myerson gave was 500,000 devices. That's just not good enough, and whatever Microsoft's notoriously oily marketing people tell you, it remains a long way from where the company would hope to be.

Yes, okay, so Microsoft has actually increased its market share overall - It was 90.37 percent for August, up from 88.74 two years ago. But it's actually down a tiny fragment on this time last year, where it was at 90.39.

So where is all this coming from? Well we can't look to Windows 8.x which now has less than half the users of two years ago (from 15.86 to 7.42). And XP has dropped by a similar figure (from 13.09 to 6.07).

No. The issue is Windows 7. People and more especially businesses are still refusing to give it up. Yes, it has lost its market share - down from 60.75 in August 2015 to 48.43 percent in August 2017. But again - it's actually UP on this time last year, where it was at 47.25.

So Microsoft's increase market share seems to be down to the continuing success of an 8 year old operating system that has been superseded twice. In other words, come 2020, we're going to have the XP debacle all over again.

And it's not just Windows. Mac OS has actually fragmented in the past two years. The number of people of Mac OS has dropped from 7.66 to 5.85. Linux on the other hand continues to bloom in its own tiny way, going from 1.68 to 3.37.

There's no question that the last two years have seen a tremendous change in the market - not least of all, the variety of form factors and new players such as Chrome OS, which isn't included here for logistical reasons.

But the key problem remains, if Microsoft can't shift people off Windows 7, without really peeing them off in the process, then we're setting ourselves up for another End of Life timebomb. µ